Lots of roller skating. Backward, forward, clockwise, counter-clockwise – I don’t care. Just not much standing around. There wasn’t an excessive amount of passive offense, or my tolerance for it has increased. When there was passive offense/sausaging, there was at least usually a little active offense or a fakeout to keep things interesting.

One pegassist. Nah, but I wasn’t really expecting that. Bring it back, ladies.

Gotham getting nervous, at least for a few jams. THIS DID OCCUR.

One of the teams at Championships for the first time (Ohio, Angel City, London) winning at least one game. Good job, Ohio and Angel City! Good job London, too. Atlanta looked really tough.

Unicorns. I’m pretty sure there were some unicorns there. In my heart, if nothing else.

Once I saw how Texas played Denver, I could see that Texas had a little extra spark. They’re always great in November, but this was something different. Beating Denver by 169? HUGE. Denver lost to Gotham by less in August.

Was the first-place game the best roller derby I’ve ever seen? By sheer skill level and ability, maybe. Was the final the most exciting game I’ve ever seen? No. Come on, you guys. That might go to the 2010 final. The internet has an awfully short memory when it comes to this stuff.

Oly’s coming back as far as the Big O, but do they intend to battle all the way to the WFTDA divisionals and possibly the championships or is this just a short dip in the WFTDA pond to serve as great sparring partners for championship and wanna be championship contenders before going back to USARS slot car racing derby?

As far as the championships, yeah I thought the Gotham/TX bout was one for the ages, but also in the disappointment category, I thought Rat City underperformed against Ohio—allowed themselves to get far behind with mental mistakes and clawed back to barely lose a winnable bout had they played up to their capacities.